Sunday, June 22, 2008
The man, a Somali who works for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, was taken Saturday night, said Millicent Mutuli, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR in neighboring Kenya.
"We have received reports that the head of the UNHCR office in Mogadishu, a Somali national, has been apparently abducted from his home in the Mogadishu area by unknown men," she said.
She had no further details.
Relatives identified the worker as Hassan Mohamed Ali, who lives just outside the capital.
"Six gunmen broke into his home last night and took him," said Khilif Aden, a relative who spoke to Ali's wife.
Earlier this year, Doctors Without Borders pulled out its foreign staff from Somalia after two of them were kidnapped, and three foreigners and a Somali were killed when their car hit a land mine.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and turned on each other.
In December 2006, Somali soldiers and their Ethiopian allies ousted Islamist insurgents who had taken over the capital. Since then, the insurgents have been battling the shaky transitional government. The Islamists had ruled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months.
Source: AP, June 22, 2008